New Creations

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"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. 
Behold, the new has come!" - 2 Corinthians 5:17

   We don't have to be slaves to our past mistakes. We don't have to be products of our environment. We are not chained to our sinful and broken natures. Your chains may be your sins. Maybe you have made mistakes you think are too terrible to ever come back from, you may think they are your identity and it is all you will ever do. It might be your family, you may come from a long line of alcoholics and you may think that is all you will be too. Maybe you have suffered in ways no one ever should, that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy.  It will look different for everyone, but we are all a little broken.

  But we don't have to allow that to be our story, God offers so much more than the mess we come from. "Thus says the Lord.. Do not call to mind former things or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth, Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert," -Isaiah 43:16, 18-19.

 "Will you not be aware of it..?" Until recently, I know I wasn't. Several months ago, I began reading a book by Priscilla Shirer titled Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan for Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer and it is rocking my world. I am in awe of the beauty that God is and the perfection of his plans. "One of the qualities that makes the gospel so real and so great is that it doesn't eliminate our past but just so thoroughly deals with it. God forgives it. He changes it." God is changing my story, he is creating a future for me that will not be defined by my past.

 I'm not saying I don't continue to wrestle with fear and doubt, but I do know that I don't have to settle for it to be constant. I know I can continually seek the Lord and he will thoroughly deal with dark and rough places in my heart. And that is truly freeing. Weight is lifted from my shoulders when I realize I don't have to fix myself. So often we turn to self help books, to motivational speakers, to social media, and to others to fix our personal disasters. But those are temporary bandaids that do nothing to heal the real wounds within us.

I don't know your story, I don't know what chains are holding you down. But regardless of if it is your past sins and choices, the choices of your family, or other circumstances, you can be free. "He has said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me," (2 Corinthians 12:9). So why don't we go ahead and boast in God's goodness, let us abide in his grace and the freedom that comes from knowing Him.

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